Parish Poet

Tim Keel pastor of Jacobs Well Church in Kansas City Missouri has written a wonderful book on the leadership potential of the Church if we all would realize where we have co-opted the ways and beliefs of the modern era.

As an aspiring Pastor I have watched with great interest the changes that are going on in relationship to a post modern culture vs. a modern culture and how modernism has affected our church life, and for the worse in most cases. You could use the term “Emergent” to explain it if you wish. There is more, very much more to it though.

This book is part spiritual memoir and a lot of practical advise on how to ask better questions. As spiritual leaders we are expected to have answers to every life question no matter how mundane or how complex. The beauty of this book is that it teaches and encourages the pastor to allow creativity to flow and allow questions to go unanswered, or to allow the congregation to go in search of the answer via any number of ways.

This book is broken up into 3 sections. What follows is some highlights and thoughts from each section.

Entering Story

In this section we see Tim introduce the ideas of narrative and seeing ourselves as partakers in the grand narrative that God is weaving in church, in life, and in history. He uses several examples from the Bible where Israel (among others) relied on tradition and the way it has been in order to dictate the way forward and how it often led to disastrous consequences. He recognizes where we have been over the last several hundred years as a church and why relying on the way it has been will not move us forward into the next great cultural awakening.

Engaging Context

The meat of the book falls in this section. Tim does a astute  job of categorizing the culture and providing an indictment of what is wrong with it. Where he has his brilliance is that he not only indicts it, but then he begins to provide remedies and potential solutions. In Chapter 6 he talks about engaging with “The Holy Other God” and the conceptual idolatry that has insidiously worked it’s way into the modern church. Tim dives into the New Testament church and how they had to engage in the cultural context of the day in order to survive. They not only survived, they thrived.

Embracing Possibility

The most meaningful portion of the book for me comes in the final chapters. In Chapter 9 he talks about postures of engagement and possibility. Postures of vulnerability, surrender and trust are just a few of the ideas he cultivates. If there is any shortfall in this book is that I feel he should have taken more time to develop these ideas. All through the book though Tim makes it clear he does not want to provide a formulatic 1 + 2 =3 leadership model and I believe he gave the basic idea and is leaving the rest to imagination purposely. I know that I finished reading this book several days ago and I am still meditating on the possibilities of these postures and how I have been, or should be better engaged in each of these postures.

Overall I find this book is very readable, and it should be read by a very diverse audience. I can see post moderns reading it and having their heart strings resonate with what is said. I definitely am in that category. I can also see an open minded leadership team in a modern church environment reading it and engaging with some of the ideas. I believe it can be of great benefit to many many people in leadership or not.